In many conventional communications devices, separate circuitry is often included to provide antenna driver functionality and regulator/clamp functionality. Implementations using separate circuitry for antenna driver functionality and regulator/clamp functionality can require several large transistors, which increases manufacturing cost and real estate.
For example, many conventional antenna driver circuits incorporate two large input/output transistors on each antenna port. A conventional antenna driver for a near field communication (NFC) device can include a N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor (NMOS) device for pulling current down to VSS (e.g., a negative power supply voltage) and a P-type metal-oxide-semiconductor (PMOS) device for supplying current from VDD (e.g., a positive power supply voltage). These NMOS and PMOS devices are specialized metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) used to implement logic for the antenna driver circuit.
Circuitry for a regulator and clamp control for the antenna can also include NMOS devices and/or PMOS devices. Thus, adding regulator and/or clamp control circuitry to a device can further increase the manufacturing cost and the real estate (e.g., circuit board area) required for the device. These specialized transistors can be very costly and can also require large real estate on the transceiver device integrated circuit (IC).
Features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which like reference characters identify corresponding elements throughout. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.